Weyerhaeuser investing $400-M.

• Author: WEYERHAEUSER, FREDERICK
• Position: Brief Article

Taking a responsible approach to growth

One hundred years ago Weyerhaeuser was little more than a tree-cutting operation in Minnesota. A lot has changed in 100 years. Today, Weyerhaeuser is the world's largest private owner of merchantable softwood timber and one of the world's largest producers of softwood lumber, engineered wood products and softwood market pulp.

It is also the top forest-products exporter in the U.S. and among top U.S. exporters overall. With $18.1 billion ($12.3 billion US) in total sales. in 1999, the company is well on its way to achieving its goal of becoming the world's best forest products company.

"Weyerhaeuser has always been one of the largest forest products companies in the world," says Rick Maksymetz, Weyerhaeuser's vice-president and general manger of Ontario Operations.

"(Weyerhaeuser has) about two-thirds of its operations in the United States and about one-third in Canada. That's an increase in ratio in Canada after the (1999) MacMillan Bloedel acquisition.

"We have a very significant presence in Canada."

Weyerhaeuser's Dryden mill, purchased In 1998, is among the most recently-acquired Canadian operations. With approximately 1,100 permanent employees on the payroll and between 400 and 600 seasonal contract workers, Weyerhaeuser is easily the community's largest employer.

"In Dryden, we have four businesses," Maksymetz says. "We produce fine paper, which is essentially paper that is used either by printers or business papers (photocopy paper), and we have a kraft pulp mill, which produces pulp that is then used in the paper machines.

"We have a woodroom studmill -- a two-by-four woodroom studmill -- that's also on the same site. There's also a Forestlands organization that supplies all these operations (with wood)."

Dryden is the company's only pulp and paper mill in Ontario, and Weyerhaeuser is committed to running the operation as efficiently as possible.

Not only does that mean making astute financial investments, but making investments in the environment as well. That is why, among other improvements, Weyerhaeuser plans to invest $75 million over the next three years to improve air quality at the Dryden mill.

"In Dryden' we have a lot of interesting projects on the go," Maksymetz says.

"We have announced an upgrade to our No. 2 paper machine, which will make it one of the most productive paper machines in the world. We have also announced a major upgrade to our air emissions.

"We're planning to spend...